So President Trump issued his much ballyhooed statement on where he is on the abortion
issue. And I'm sure I'm the last person to talk about it over the
course of you know, there's thirteen straight hours of talk radio here, But
as director Right to Life es Central California, I feel like I kind of
have to talk about it. There's a number of things about this that are
let me just give the top line assessment here. I thought it was wildly
inadequate. The number of times he said that people have to listen to their
heart, frankly made me want to vomit. You got to listen to your
heart on he almost takes the attitude that he is a uninvolved bystander on the
issue. There was almost nothing about actual policies he supports, he doesn't support,
administrative actions he will or won't support, Like if you're going to make
some big I'm the candidate that I need the votes of all the pro lifers
you gotta give. It was the most non policy laden alleged policy statement in
the history of mankind. There's all kinds of stuff that even he did in
his first administration, or at least that his administration did, that I would
bet dollars to donuts. He doesn't actually remember because it was a bunch of
administrative stuff that he didn't necessarily care about very much. There's all kinds of
regulatory stuff that a new presidential administration can do that has a major impact on
abortion. Are you going to promote policies to allow people to purchase insurance plans
that don't cover abortion in states like California? Are you going to what are
you going to do about the FDA regulation of the abortion pill. That's a
huge issue right now. It's already in front of the US Supreme Court.
The Biden administration massively deregulated the abortion pill. You could come in and do
something about that. There are a million and one things that the Trump administration
could do on the question of abortion, and he he took the opportunity of
this statement to clarify nothing. The only thing he took any time to talk
about was IVF. Now, I recognize I'm in the minority on the question
of IVF. I think IVF is seriously. I think IVF while the people
who make use of it are often motivated by heartbreaking conditions of infertility, and
I'm not judging those individual people. The fact of the matter remains that during
IVF there is in America because the IVF industry is pretty much completely unregulated or
certainly far less regulated than it is in Europe, certainly far less regulated than
it is in There's some American states that regulated a little better, like Louisiana.
IVF involves creating far more embryos than can ever possibly come to term,
and so you have this horrific situation of millions of embryos being created who either
have to be indefinitely kept in frozen storage or who are destroyed. So Trump
talks on and on about IVF because of why. About a month and a
half ago, the Alabama Supreme Court issued a decision that basically all it said
was, Yes, if you negligently destroy IVF embryos, parents can sue over
it. That's all it said. It was a case that the Alabama State
Supreme Court was assessing that was looking at a guy had wandered into the back
of an IVF clinic had dropped a petri dish or some container with a bunch
of IVF embryos and destroyed the embryos. The parents of those embryos sued the
IVF clinic, saying that was basically a They sued the IVF clinic under Alabama's
wrongful Death Statute, which Alabama's wrongful Death Statute has allowed people to file civil
lawsuits for not just the deaths of live, walking around people, but also
children in the womb. So the Alabama Supreme Court said, well, if
we allow people to sue under this wrongful death statute for negligent conduct that results
in the death of an embryo who's inside a mother's womb, why wouldn't we
allow people to sue for the death of an embryo that's outside of a mother's
womb. That's all it was. It was the Alabama State Supreme Court saying,
hey, IVF clinics, you are subject to the same kinds of negligence.
You know, not behaving as a reasonably prudent person should, not engaging
in negligence, not allowing random, unsecure people to wander into the back of
your clinic and destroy embryos. You are subject to those kinds of standards of
conduct. It had nothing to do with the overturning of Rob Waite, It
had nothing to do with abortion policy. But because the Alabama Supreme Court said
that, And by the way, it's the Alabama State Supreme Court, not
a federal court, not the Supreme Court, the Alabama Supreme Court. It's
a court whose only area of jurisdiction is over Alabama law. It has no
impact even on Mississippi law. Because that happened, all these Republicans, because
IVF has massive mainstream popularity, All these Republicans ran around like chickens with their
heads cut off, terrified at the idea that whole Democrats will use this to
slam us. For me, if if Democrats see this, they'll they'll say
that we're anti IVF. So we got to make sure that we show that
we're super pro IVF. So what happens, Well, the Alabama state Legislature,
which Trump effusively praises in this statement, Today, the Alabama State Legislature
passes a law that grants almost complete immunity from lawsuits to the IVF industry,
which is like, why shouldn't they be subject to a lawsuit if they behave
negligently and destroy embryos that parents want to keep. This is insane. Now,
So Trump spends all this time in this statement talking about IVF, a
procedure that is nowhere at risk in the United States of America. I should
add that no Republican has proposed limiting that. In fact, Republics have disgustingly
and obsequiously bent over backwards to pledge allegiance to it. Over the last month
and a half, he goes on and on about wanting to protect IVF in
all fifty states, but then on the whole question of abortion, he just
seems to take the posture of, Hey, well, every state's gonna do
what they're gonna do. Every state's gonna do what they're gonna do, and
you gotta vote the way you want to vote on it. Just follow your
heart, got to do what's right for your family. You do you.
And he gives this attitude again as if he's basically decided I'm out, I'm
I'm out of this question. I am a bystander to the question of abortion.
Not one word about These are the executive policies my administration will pursue about
a border. We will have no overseas funding of abortion. Will we will
reinstate the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits federal funding for foreign and g o's
to perform abortions. We will look into roll back the FDA's deregulation of the
abortion pill, which is which, by the way, is the singular thing
that would have the biggest impact on abortion, is relooking at the FDA's regulation
of the abortion pill. That is the one single thing that would actually have
an impact. The thing about his statement, though, that I that I
find, I guess the most troubling. Whether there are two things I find
troubling. One is the idea that he is doing some brilliant political strategicy.
And this is the thing I sort of of dislike about the Trump orbit,
the Trump universe. Trump says what he says, Okay, The problem is
that there's this universe of Trump sycophancy that demands that you have to pledge allegiance
to the greatness of every single thought that has ever come out of Donald Trump's
head. And all these people on Twitter, all these Trump sycophants, are
like, oh, the President Trump's doing the smart thing here. He's making
sure that Democrats can't use abortion as an issue to pound us with way to
go Donald Trump, Oh this is brilliant. He's having these reasonable exceptions to
abortion, like rape and incest. They're acting as if Donald Trump has like,
you know, he's cracked the genetic code, that he's you know,
solved some grand equation that no one else has ever solved. He is doing
the same exact thing that Republican presidential candidates have done for forty years. He
is compromising on the abortion question in this way and that way, and this
way and that way for the sake of winning an election. Let's not pretend
like Mitt Romney wouldn't be doing the exact same thing right now. Let's not
pretend like George W. Bush wouldn't be doing the exact same thing right now.
Let's not pretend like so many other Republican politicians wouldn't George H. W.
Bush wouldn't have done the exact same thing right now. This is not
some grand, unheard of political strategicy. He's doing the exact same thing.
And this is the problem with Trump, all right, the problem with Trump
when it comes to the abortion issue. Trump was until twenty twelve, when
he was sixty five years old. Donald Trump was a pro choice person until
the age of sixty five, at which point he started wanting to run as
a run for president as a Republican, and then all of a sudden,
he changed his political position on abortion at the age of sixty five. Now,
I don't know about you, and I'm not saying it's impossible, and
I would welcome any prodigal son who returns at the age of sixty five.
Not a lot of people have massive ideological, massive deep seated ideological changes at
the age of sixty five. It just doesn't happen very often, especially when
that ideological change is perfectly timed for one's political ambitions. You can't be a
Republican president if you're pro choice. That's a bridge too far for the Republican
electorate. So Donald Trump snaps his fingers and all of a sudden, he's
pro life. So this is the problem is that I don't know that Donald
Trump views this issue very sincerely. I don't think he actually cares about this
topic all that much. He knows it's important to a big segment of the
electorate, and he delivered on three Supreme Court justices willing to overturn Roev Wade
very good, but he doesn't really care about it. And as a result,
the outside of him his judicial appointments, which frankly, he just kind
of farmed out to the Federalist Society, which didn't exactly have a perfect batting
average outside of his judicial pick. His judicial picks were largely really really good
because he completely farmed it out to the Federalist Society. Outside of that,
though, his enactment of pro life policies through the administration, through the regulatory
regime that he actually has control over through his administration, it was spotty.
He enacted the Mexico City Policy and put in place a great Title ten policy
to stop funding planned parenthood, but kept allowing Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins to
fund federal research for embryo destructive stem cell research and even to fund federal research
on the body parts of a boarded feet up until pro lifers raised such a
stink about it that he changed it about two or three, about three years
into his four year term. So that's what I'm saying is he doesn't really
care about the abortion issue. He wants it to go away, and so
he's almost acting like mat Web now because it's at the states. You got
to follow your heart, and that's always going to be weaker than the Democrat
position. Abortion should be legal. Abortion should be legal for all nine months
of pregnancy for any reason. It should be federally funded and people should have
universal access to it. That's the Democrat position nationwide, all nine months,
any reason, and we're going to respond to it with this wishy washy flailing
around. When we return, I want to talk about this idea that there's
some other thing, apparently, some other thing that we have to get to,
that abortion is just a distraction from. That's next. On the John
Girardi Show, President Trump had a video statement released along with a written statement
that he released on Truth Social about abortion that everyone's sort of dissecting today and
my end assessment of it is wildly inadequate. Doesn't actually say what his position
is anymore. All he says is, well, every state has to vote
on it the way they think. You gotta follow your heart on this thing,
which is like the biggest like like he's standing on the sidelines, like
he's not an integral player. Like the relevant questions are, what will you
do if your presidency comes in? Are there is there legislation you would sign?
Is there are there executive orders you would make? Is there regulatory changes
you would enact? No? None of that. All he talks about is
that we we have to win elections. We have to win elections because our
country's on the edge of failure, so he says in his written statement,
great love and compassion must be shown when even thinking about the subject of life.
But at the same time, we must use common sense in realizing that
we have an obligation to the salvation of our nation, which is currently in
serious decline, to win elections, without which we will have nothing other than
failure, death, and destruction. We need to save our nation by compromising
a bunch on abortion. All right, let me just make this clear.
There's not some other issue that's more important. That abortion is something that we
deal with on the road to that we need to compromise on abortion so that
we can win the election and save the nation. Save the nation from what?
What is more important for saving the nation from? There's nothing that's more
important. Guys, do you understand how many abortions happen in a year?
A million last year are the best estimates that we have, and the numbers
are always fuzzy because California doesn't report its abortion statistics. So that's a massive
gaping hole in our knowledge and understanding. But people are still able to do
you know estimates and assessments. The assessment was that in twenty twenty three,
one million abortions happened one zero zero zero zero zero zero a million. Just
fathom if you can, the tidal wave of human suffering that's accompanying that.
A million children who don't get to see the light of day, a million.
You know, we know that at least seventy percent of abortions are against
the preference of the mother who's having them. So hundreds of thousands of women
suffering and sorrowing over an abortion they didn't want to have but felt compelled to
because of finances or this or that. Every year, another million, another
eight hundred thousand, another nine hundred thousand, and you know what's a lot
of what's driving it. By the way, federal executive policy, the Biden
administration changing the rules for access to the abortion pill, which, by the
way, I'm not talking about the morning after pill. I'm talking about the
abortion pill. These are pills to bring about an abortion up to ten weeks
in to a pregnancy. Okay, this is the most common way that abortions
happen nowadays. Most of the time it's not happening via surgery. It's a
pill that you can take up to ten weeks into a pregnancy that basically artificially
recreates a miscarriage up to ten weeks. A lot more health roast associated with
it than surgical abortion. But what happened. The Biden administration altered the FDA
regulation around this pill so that it could be shipped through the mail or picked
up at a major pharmacy, and all of a sudden, as soon as
he does that, boom abortion numbers skyrocket. That's something that a new pro
life president could stop, could reverse. But does Trump talk about that.
No, he doesn't talk about that at all. He doesn't talk about any
of the stuff he actually can do. He acts again, he acts like
he is a sideline spectator to this, that there's some thing and that,
oh, well, we got to just win this election because our national salvation
is at stake. This is our national salvation being at stake. A million
people being unjustly killed in a year. That's more important than anything else.
I think the immigration problem is serious, I admit freely, openly. I'm
not like I'm constrained not to. I think it's a terrible thing that we
have gazillions of people that we have millions of people coming into the country sidestepping
the normal immigration laws to come into the country in this way. I don't
think that's a good thing. I think there's all kinds of problems with national
sovereignty and all kinds of problems that that involves. It's not as bad as
a million people being murdered in a year. It just isn't. There is
nothing that can be worse than that. Like this is like being in Germany
in nineteen forty and thinking that the well, we you know, this this
problem that they're having with the Jews, you know, we gotta we gotta
like compromise on that so we can filk focus on the real problem, which
is, geez, this economy we're facing. What are we gonna say for
the futures for German children? Like, who gives a crap about anything else?
As long as that issue isn't being resolved, I just cannot Look.
Obviously, I'm way more pro life than Trump is, and probably the electorate
is far less pro life than I am. But I think those of us
in the base have to do what we can to hold him accountable. And
if he's not, I mean, he's just kind of a band. He's
he is acting like he is a spectator to this. This was the biggest
nothing burger statement in human history. He doesn't say anything that he's actually going
to do. I mean, it's wild, unsatisfying. And look, you
guys, if you listen to this show, you know me, I call
balls and strikes with Donald Trump. If he does something good, I say
he does something good. If he does something bad, I say he does
something bad. If he's you know, with all of his myriad lawsuits,
I play it pretty straight, and I've said where you know, I think
most of them against him have been bogus. But this this was woefully inadequate,
woefully disappointing. When we return, I just because this Trump thing on
abortion is making it I think the news of the day. I want to
talk about the state of the abortion the anti abortion movement in the United States,
where we are legally, and where we need to go. That's next
on The John Gerardy Show. To understand the context of Trump's comments today about
abortion, I think I want to lay out what sort of the national landscape
is with abortion right now legally, what the overturning of Row Acts did,
and where we sort of stand with all these things, what kind of coherent
federal policy Republicans need to have when it comes to abortion, Because I think
there is a sense, a pretty strong sense among a lot of Republicans that
now that we've overturned Roby Wade, we're done, We're done, mission accomplished.
I've heard basically Ann Coulter has adopted that position, and a lot of
other Republicans who were sort of pretending to be super duper pro life have all
of a sudden come out as not really pro life, not really caring about
the issue of abortion as such. All Right, So let me just describe
what the pre twenty twenty two landscape was, what the pre DBS landscape was,
what the Row landscape was, the Row landscape, just to remind you
all, and maybe for some of you you had a vague sense of this
but didn't clearly have a sense of it. What Roe v. Wade did
and its successor case planned Parenta versus Casey, which was a Supreme Court case
from nineteen ninety two. This was when Anthony Kennedy really stuck his foot into
our national abortion politics. It basically said that the Constitution of the United States,
our foundational law in America mandated legal abortion for the whole duration of pregnancy
and for any reason. Basically, it said, yes, you can limit
abortion after viability unless the pregnancy threatens the mother's quote health. And the way
that Another Supreme Court case from nineteen seventy three issued the same day as Row,
called Dovers as Bolton. The way it interpreted health was so broad that
it encompassed essentially all abortions, all pregnancies. All pregnancies implicate maternal health,
and therefore all pregnancies could be banned could legally qualify for abortion. So in
nineteen seventy three, when Roe was issued, we went overnight from having some
of the most conservative abortion laws in the world, where most states had banned
abortion except to save the mother's life, to overnight, in nineteen seventy three,
every state had the most permissive laws about abortion possible, and states couldn't
change their own laws about abortion. Why Well, because the Supreme Court said
the Constitution mandates legal abortion. If the Constitution mandates something, you can't pass
an individual state law that contradicts it. It would be like California trying to
pass a law that says, you know, the right to keep in bare
arms shall be in fringe. Well, no, you can't pass a law
like that, has to be consistent with the Second Amendment. So that's where
we found ourselves. From nineteen seventy three to twenty twenty two, it was
this impossible position for pro lifers to actually bring about any meaningful change. All
fifty states had legal abortion for the full term of pregnancy, all fifty states.
All fifty states had legal abortion throughout pregnancy. What overturning Robi Wade did
was simply allow states to pass laws to limit abortion at Maybe one state will
limit abortion at twenty weeks out of a forty week presidency. Maybe this state
will limit abortion at sixteen weeks. Maybe this state of limited abortion at the
first trimester, Maybe this state of limited abortion when fetal heartbeat can be detected.
That is what over turning Roe v. Wade allowed. So it was
this necessary condition. Now what's been happening since twenty twenty two is that a
bunch of states, the minute they have actual elections on the topic of abortion,
a democratic process where people vote up or down on the abortion issue,
what do we find, Well, we find that a lot of Republicans are
not actually that pro life. So every single state where abortion has been discussed,
the pro life position has lost. Either the state has ratified some new
legal protection for abortion through popular vote, or a limitation on abortion was defeated.
And because of that, and there were losses like that in elections in
Ohio which was disastrous, Kentucky, California, several other states, Republicans are
now terrified of the abortion issue. And that's chiefly what Trump's statement, I
think is responding to. He's terrified of abortion. He thinks that if the
election becomes an up and down referendum on abortion, is abortion good, then
vote for Biden is abortion bad than vote for Trump. If that's all the
election's about, Donald Trump knows he will lose, Okay, So as a
result, Donald Trump is basically abandoning the field. He's running away. He's
saying, well, everyone's got to vote the way they think about it.
Everyone's got to follow their heart. That's all He's literally he's expressed almost no
actual concrete opinion on the question of abortion whatsoever in this statement. Now,
just because the Supreme Court turned the question of abortion overdess basically said states can
regulate abortion, it doesn't mean that the federal government can't regulate abortion. What
Democrats are trying to do. What Joe Biden has pledged to do if he
gets enough Democrats in the Senate to get rid of the filibuster rule. This
is what he's pledging to do. So remember how I described that Roe v.
Wade basically imposed on all fifty states this standard that abortion has to be
legal for the duration of pregnancy. It did that as a mandate of the
Constitution. What Biden wants to do is pass a federal law, just a
normal federal law, to mandate on all fifty states that abortion be legal.
So instead of having abortion be legal by a constitutional mandate, which is what
we had in America from nineteen seventy three Roe v. Wade until twenty twenty
two, does Biden wants to pass a federal law, a normal federal law
passed by the House the Senate, signed by the President, that mandates legal
abortion on all fifty states. That is what he wants, That is what
he is committed to. That is a plank in the Democratic Party platform.
Biden has promised not only would he do it, he would even give up
the filibuster rule in the Senate to do it, so basically, the Senate
can change its filibuster rules. The philibuster rule in the Senate is basically,
for most pieces of legislation in the Senate, you actually need sixty votes to
advance it rather than just fifty. Right. It makes it very difficult.
So basically, for almost any non budgetary thing, you need sixty votes in
the Senate to pass it rather than fifty. And this makes the Senate a
kind of conservative body in the sense that it doesn't it's very hard to pass
something in the Senate. Biden has pledged to abolish the philibuster rule for the
sake of passing abortion legislation like this. He's also willing, seemingly to expand
the Supreme Court in the same way pack the Supreme Court. The number of
justices on the Supreme Court is not set by the Constitution. Congress can pass
a normal law, majority of the House, majority of the Senate, president
signs it to expand the number of justices. If that happens, then the
president appoints and the Senate confirms new justices. Democrats are very open about this
idea of packing the Supreme Court to undo the Dobbs decision. So one way
or another, Democrats have a strong committed position, this is what we're gonna
do. We're gonna make abortion legal without restrictions in all fifty states. The
Republican response is Republicans have no freaking idea what they're doing. They are such
weenies that they can't say some consistent position. They can't say, for example,
if elected president, we have to do everything in our power to reregulate
the abortion pill, because the deregulation of the abortion pill under President Biden puts
women's health at risk but also has led to a massive increase in the number
of abortions. But no, we're not gonna say anything like that, And
I think when we return, I want to talk about this. This is
why I want a lawyer as president, because I don't think fundamentally Donald Trump,
even quite still fully understands the ways in which he can impact abortion policy,
or if he does, he just chooses not to talk about it.
That's next on the John Girardi Show. I've often made the argument that I
think only lawyers should be president. I think it's kind of bizarre that they
aren't. I think it's to elect a non lawyer as president. I think
is as silly as electing a non lawyer to be the district attorney. Like,
what is the district attorney to The district attorney basically is in charge of
criminal law enforcement for a county. Right, That's what Lisa smith Kamp does.
She's in charge of criminal law enforcement for the County of Fresno. There's
some civil stuff, but for the most part, criminal law enforcement. We
would never dream of electing a non lawyer as DA. I mean, theoretically,
anyone can run for DA. You know, there are plenty of people
in the Greater Fresnel area I like very well. Like if Trevor Carrey decided,
Hey, I'm gonna run for DA, I wouldn't vote for Trevor.
I like Trevor quite a bit, but he's not a lawyer, Okay.
I'd vote for a lawyer over Trevor. Trevors just doesn't have that qualification.
That's okay. He's qualified to do a lot of other good things. Now.
Similarly, the president is in charge of all federal enforcement of the law,
all of it. All of federal law, environmental law, health law,
criminal law, securities law, antitrust law, everything, the whole body
of law. Talking like Jerry Seinfeld for some reason, and yet for some
reason, and including the regulatory state, which involves the president using the mechanisms
at his disposal to affect his preferred policies within the parameters of laws passed by
Congress. I don't really think Donald Trump, in his statement on abortion,
basically said no actual restriction. He enumerated, no actual restriction on abortion he
supported, nor did he even mention the various good things even that his own
administration did while he was in office to restrict. He didn't mention the Mexico
City policy, didn't mention all these things that they did. And I just
think that Trump to this day fundamentally has a hard time understanding his executive power
as president to change things. I don't think he necessarily fully understands it,
and I think that's why a lot of stuff didn't happen while he was in
office, why he wasn't able to ruthlessly maneuver the mechanisms of the executive state
to accomplish what he wanted. Now I think there's been some recognition of that.
I think he's pushing or his campaign surguits are pushing for giving him greater
latitude to fire federal employees and replace them with his own chosen people. But
I this is the thing about it that that has always worried me. When
you elect a non president to this role. This is fundamentally a legal enforcement
job. And that's why, all things being equal, I mean, yeah,
I'd rather elect a virtuous non lawyer than an evil lawyer, But all
things being equal, I'd really wish, I really wish there is a lawyer
running for this job. And I think it's why Democrats use the administrative state
so much better. They've had lawyers in the presidency for the last thirty years,
unlike us. That'll do it for John Girardi Show. See you next
time on Power Talk.